wedding bell blues

The last time I did this, I doubled my weekly income in eight hours. This time around, I personally insulted a culinary genius, ruined my favorite oxford, and doomed a newly wed couple to marital insipidity.


I was asked to help serve for the wedding reception of a community member’s son. It was supposed to be me, Germans #2 and #3, and a former community member from Boston. We were to help serve food and wine for 200-250 people, and then we could dance as long as we wanted! What a deal, huh?

This is how it went down. German #2 flew home to Germany three weeks early (I’m crying on the inside) because of her hand injury, so our senior BVSer filled in. And KTL was there, too, to assist Nev, the bartender. Or fill in. Whatever we needed her to do. Most of us converge on the farm across the street, which is decked in full storybook regalia. We’re not all there yet, but that’s ok; it’s early. We start to fill water glasses and finish setting the tables. An hour later, German #3 and the Bostonian are still MIA. I call Main House.

German #3: Main House, this is German #3.
Me: What are you still doing there?
German #3: Waiting for a ride. Nev was supposed to bring me over when he came. I don’t know where he is.
Me: Good grief. Be ready; we’re coming to get you.

We’re thirty minutes late with champagne and appetizers. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to single-handedly fill 250 water glasses with ice. Thankfully, German #3 and the BVSer arrive to start filling champagne flutes. We’ve lost any hope for the Bostonian. Apparently, it’s not enough that pouring champagne is a slow, arduous process; BVSer can’t open champagne bottles. And the woman making the appetizers is harassing everybody because, “We need people to serve these! I can’t do it myself!” Of course not. Let me ask my staff of three to assist you while I pour ice into goblets with a red plastic beer cup. We don’t really need to get the champagne out. Classy.

Crunch time passes (we think). The guests are champagned out and the apps are getting fewer takes with each circulation. Great, a breather! Oh, but can we gather dirty highball glasses from the tables and take them to the house to be washed? The bar has run out. Ok, makes sense. We hit the floor, gathering empties. How were we to know that this was just the tip of the iceberg?

Even up to dinner time, the bar was losing the battle to the gin and tonic crowd. No matter how hard two of us were working to collect empty glasses from the crowd and send them up to the remaining two crew members who were scrubbing and cutting fruit, we could not produce enough glasses for everybody.

Finally, dinner rolls around and we’re on the buffet line. Familiar work! This is what we were actually asked to do! How sweet a feeling to know one’s task. Except for me, apparently. The head chef asks me to take over for him with the vegetarian option, only to reclaim his spoons several minutes later. “Wrong. Give me those. Get out of here.”

Shortly after the last guest leaves the buffet line, we’re sent onto the floor to begin clearing and refilling water and wine. I suppose at this point, we are also supposed to be refilling champagne flutes for the coming toasts. Except at the same time, Nev needs us to also keep gathering empty beer and highball glasses (and can somebody be washing them?). We can do this, you see, because we are bionic people.

Mid-clear, as the groom’s father is reciting “How the Whale Got His Throat,” to the crowd the head chef calls me over. “Hey, come over here. What’s your name?”

“Does it matter?” I respond. I have no idea what he wants, but I’m too fried to care. Apparently that was the wrong answer.

“Oh, why would you say that to me? Huh? What do you mean by that? Get out of here. I don’t want to talk to you. Find out how many servers there are, but don’t give him anything. He doesn’t get dinner.”

Fine. I’m too exasperated to eat. I’ll wash beer glasses instead. Meanwhile, the bride and groom are being toasted with wine. Shit.

Eventually, after making a pass of the entire tent for wine and dirty dishes I ask Nev what else is required of us. It’s 11 PM and none of us have had dinner yet. I’m ready to go home; it’s the end of the one day I had off this weekend and I may have to open the kitchen the next morning. The answer comes down, but it isn’t clear: just gather the rest of the glasses and pack them up (into what, we don’t know), wash some more glasses for the bar, and then everything else can be taken care of tomorrow. Oh, but the cake will be soon—can you stay to help set up for and serve that? Right. The cake. And people are still drinking. They probably will be for the rest of the night. And we’re supposed to take their glasses?

The cake is served at approximately 11:15 and we walk to the car shortly after washing another two racks of glasses for the bar. We’re just about to make good our escape when, “Damn, the tires are spinning. We’re stuck in the mud.” Luckily, Steve the curator of the Red Barn is leaving the house and asks us why we aren’t down at the tent dancing the night away.
We explain our situation and he offers to help us out. We start by pushing on the front of the car, trying to back it out, but only manage to get scatter-shot with muck. The next step involves recruiting the groom’s father to hitch us to a farm truck (in his tux, no less) and pull us out. Finally we are free and driving back to our beds, each not-so-much looking forward to work days and a 5 AM drive to Pennsylvania.